It is said that if you think about the past you become anxious and if you worry about the future you become irritable. Sketching on the spot keeps you firmly in the present and is an excellent way of freeing yourself up and discovering all sorts of things about your surroundings that you might not otherwise notice. The smaller and rougher the sketch the better – let your pencil take you for a walk.

Here are a few memories from my travels which always take me straight back to the very essence of a place in time – the people I was with and even what we had for lunch. The one called Vale of Tears, of an old castle in Romania was actually done in torrential rain from a doorway. My companion and I were dropped out of a car and had to work flat out which is never a bad thing!